Monster
by skypig21
Summary: McKay and Carson are coerced into serving on one side of a bloody conflict. Sheppard serves on the other. The effects of war are permanent and, at times, unforgivable. AU.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: Line from the Kate Bush song "Experiment VI" used without permission, but I hope she'd approve. This story was written for Inkling. Thanks go to her, and to my beloved Aslowhite for their wonderful, wonderful betas and encouragement_

Chapter One

Discarded bandages lie stuffed into a corner, stinking with the effluent of uncountable casualties. There's no place else to put this waste, so Carson Beckett tosses it into the corner, where at least it's out of the way. The reeking pile is now almost four feet high, and is white and red, and brown where the red has dried.

"Now," he says, taking a breath and pulling his shoulders back. "What have we here, lad?"

"Don't take it," the warrior grits, his fists balled up with his agony. "Give me the root if ya hafta, but don't take my leg."

Ampoules of root extract are stacked in a cabinet, locked away but ready if they are needed. Carson's used root on one patient, so far, and that person was unconscious when he'd done it. He doesn't know what it's like when used on someone awake and aware of what's happening to him.

"Don't worry for now, son. I'll give you something for the pain and we'll go from there, aye?"

The soldier nods bravely. "Aye, something to take the worst of it."

With explicit permission—for a conscious man must choose what path to take—the doctor washes the wound with anesthetic, which takes the edge off his patient's suffering. In a short time, the man lies limp, floating between all of the healthy years he's had and the fevered death his injury will eventually bring him. Two, three days from now, Carson will probably have to unlock the cabinet, remove an ampoule and give it to the soldier, who would rather die than be a burden or a cripple.

When he finishes doing what little he can for this man, Beckett strips off his gloves and throws them on the pile in the corner. He looks around the field hospital. Its rough wooden sides tip a little as the wind outside hits them. The plywood roof shifts some. Carson is accustomed to this. It's a long, ramshackle structure, fully utilitarian and unnervingly practical. There are doors at one end, doors at the other and a few in between.

Uncountable numbers of patients have come and gone in just the short time that Carson's worked here. Uncountable numbers lie in the beds right now, and they send up a constant moan, like the wind makes when it skids around the building's northeast corner.

"Who's next?" Carson asks no one in particular. He has several assistants, some of them well-trained volunteers, some of them conscripted, some flat-out coerced, as he was. Soldiers stand nearby, watching him work.

"We have many more, Doctor," one assistant says.

"Aye, who is with them now?"

"No one, Sir." The assistant pours disinfectant over the steel table used to examine patients and perform surgeries. He pushes the fluid around so it mixes with the blood and urine and dirt and other things on the table. A shallow perimeter gully catches this mess and sends it down a waste pipe into a sewer under the building. It washes into the Holin River, which flows red at times like this.

"Bring the next one," Carson says, donning another pair of surgical gloves. He can do this, Carson tells himself. The soldiers watch him, so he must do this.

"Yes, Doctor."

Another assistant brings Carson some tea, which he doesn't bother to drink. There is nothing resembling sugar on this planet, and the tea is bitter and dark.

A man is wheeled in on a rolling stretcher. He is lifted and placed on the washed table. Beckett closes his eyes and breathes deeply, again. The man here is unconscious, covered with dirt and still has his uniform on.

"Why wasn't he stripped?" Carson says, handing a pair of trauma scissors to his assistant and taking up a pair for himself. "Start with the top, I'll take the bottom."

They work in silence. Carson removes the boots, and cuts up the man's pant legs and spreads the material. His patient's skin is hot and damp, an unlikely combination, given the weather. His feet and calves and knees and thighs are without blemish. The assistant finishes cutting off the shirt and undergarment beneath it. Only then does Carson begin his head-to-toe exam.

He takes up a small penlight and rounds to the patient's head. The light falls to the floor with a quiet clatter.

_It's not fair._

He places his hands to either side of his patient's head and uses his thumbs to pull up the man's eyelids, willing anything but this.

"Oh, no," he whispers. "Can you hear me, man?"

The patient says nothing and doesn't move at all.

Carson rubs the patient's sternum and tries to hide his panic.

"How did this happen to ye?" he says, and then notices how his assistants and the soldiers watch him, puzzled.

"Doctor? Do you know this man?"

Realizing that he's very close to absolute disaster, Carson straightens and collects himself.

"No," he says. "Just… He's so much older than the others."

"Aye, must have come from the Far Country."

"Get me a radiological unit and a glucometer."

"Sir?"

"You heard me, boy."

"Aye."

The assistant leaves and Carson looks to his patient again. A rapid trauma sweep reveals a possible fractured collarbone but no other obvious injuries. The man is feverish, but then so are most other people arriving from the battlefields. The water is contaminated, the food is perished or otherwise tainted. His moist skin indicates another problem entirely.

The man on the steel table groans and opens his eyes. He raises his arms defensively and then winces as he moves his injured shoulder. Carson takes his wrists as gently as he can, so as not to alarm him.

"Settle down," he says, bringing himself close enough to be seen and understood.

"Hi," says the man, obviously still only half there.

"Hi, yourself, Rodney," Beckett replies.

OoOoO

"Please tell me why everyone wants me dead."

"Not everyone, Rodney. _I_ don't want you dead."

They talk very quietly, as Carson checks Rodney's pupils and vital signs. Ordinarily he'd get an assistant to do this for him, but the morning crew hasn't arrived and the night shift has gone home already, and, anyway, this is Rodney and he wants to take care of his own.

"Cold comfort. Have you seen the others?"

"Nae, haven't. Does this hurt?" He pushes his hand up and into a bruise on Rodney's side.

"A little."

"On a scale of one to ten…"

"Two. Okay, three. Stop it, now, will you?"

It's been days without a break for Carson. He runs his hand over his face, stopping for a second to reassure himself that he washed up thoroughly before coming to the ward this morning. Even scraped under his fingernails, which brought forth so much debris that even now he checks and rechecks his hands to make certain that nothing lies in the small folds and cracks, or tucked up around the cuticles.

He stops looking at his hands and fixes his gaze on McKay. "How did you end up on the front lines? I thought you had been placed in the technology sector?"

Rodney half-grins. "They said that I had no enthusiasm for my work." It is a partial explanation, but a precise one. "How about you?"

"I've been here the entire time." He gazes about the ward, bed after bed after bed. The room is fifty yards long, and is filled with the sick and the wounded and even the shell shocked, who are heavily sedated.

Carson continues to palpate Rodney's torso. "Two days ago, they brought in one of the field surgeons. Leg off. Mortar. He died. A mercy, really."

"You think?"

Carson doesn't answer. He is dreaming with his eyes open, watching himself give the root to the young doctor lying on the steel table, how the man had begged for it before falling unconscious.

"Carson?"

"What?"

Rodney looks at him. It's a comfort knowing that at least one of the landing party survived capture, but it sends Carson to missing the others and to worrying about them again. To busy himself, he rechecks Rodney's shoulder and the IV line that is giving his friend some fluids and glucose, nutrients and pain relief.

Late in the day, a Commander, Hale Mansoor, arrives to determine which patients will be returned to the front line and how soon. He and another Commander, Hale Boski, do this every few days.

"This man will go tomorrow." Hale Mansoor stands before a young soldier who took shrapnel and whose stitches still hold a large portion of his skin together.

"Don't be daft! He's not ready!" Carson stands close to the soldier, a boy, really, still holding up the thin gown to show the many, many lines of sutures over his belly and chest.

"Take out those threads. He will be fine. Can you hold a weapon, son?"

And the boy nods his head and slides his eyes over to Carson, pleading and brave at the same time.

"I tell you, he's not healed!"

Mansoor pulls his lips into an avuncular smile. "Of course he is. He will fight and serve proudly and help us win this war." And he places his massive hand on the boy's shoulder. The boy flinches but keeps his face alit with joy, even if his happiness isn't reflected in his eyes.

Carson sputters and walks over to the supply cart, where he takes up a small blade with which to cut the stitches out of the boy's body. A hand on his shoulder turns him on his heels. Hale Mansoor, very tall and broad like a locomotive, towers above the doctor.

"You do not tell me who I may return to service," he says calmly. "When I want to know your medical opinion, I will ask it of you. Do you understand this?" And he squeezes Carson's shoulder, pushes his thumb right into the brachial plexus, so Carson's arm jerks and tingles and the blade slips from his hand and falls to the floor.

"Aye, I do," he replies, breathlessly.

The Commander lets him go and reaches down to retrieve the blade.

"I believe you have a scientist here?"

Carson has never voluntarily betrayed anyone—no one human, at any rate—in his entire life.

Mansoor looks around the ward.

"I want to see him. The scientist. Where is he?"

He places his hand on Carson's sore shoulder. The doctor hangs his head.

OoOoO

The transport bus rolls away. Blue exhaust blows out of its rusted tailpipe. Rodney waves a hand to move the polluted mist away from his face. His eyes never leave Carson's, even as other partially healed patients push him this way and that as they stumble to find seating in the open bed.

The raw, grey day hangs its cold fog over the hospital grounds. Carson shivers along with Rodney, who cradles his injured arm in a self-splint. He is being returned to the technology sector until he is well enough to take up a weapon and head back to the front lines.

The war is supposed to bring "freedom and prosperity to all developing nations." It has not done that. Wars never do. It has brought a lot of suffering to the aggressors, the Berlish, for whom Carson must toil; much more to those trying to defend their lands. A half-million or more Ibani have perished, from violence perpetrated by the invaders or from the civil strife that has arisen, from disease or starvation or from people simply giving up the will to live.

Rodney's a stubborn git. He won't give up the will to live for anything. Carson wants to be like Rodney and in some ways he is. He watches the transport vehicle chug and rattle down the muddy, pitted road until it goes around the bend and Rodney is gone for him. Turning to walk back to the wards, Carson sees Hale Mansoor over by the hospital doors.

"We will prevail," the huge Commander says, with the automatic diction of someone who has said this so many times it has ceased to hold meaning.

"Aye," Carson responds, because that is what he's supposed to say. "We will prevail."

OoOoO

The first explosion sends an entire quarter of the hospital ward plummeting to the ground. A tremendous fireball sears people lying in adjoining areas. Smoke chokes out some patients farther still from the center of the blast. Beckett is thrown from the cot on which he has curled and is blown several feet to land heavily against a wall far opposite where the shell impacted. The hospital is under attack. Thank God Rodney isn't here to die in this.

As soon as the dust settles, Ibani insurgents—ungrateful members of the population Carson's side intends to "free"—pour forth into the remains of the building. They start at the far end of the bombed-out building and go from bed to bed, shooting the helpless men who lie there.

"Oh, God, no!" Carson gasps when he sees this. The ward fills with smoke as parts of it burn. It smells of gunpowder and terror. He chokes on his own fear as he crawls along the wall, out of sight of the Ibanis for the moment. He peeks up long enough to spy one of his assistants hurriedly unlocking the cabinet that holds the root. Suicide isn't unknown in war. Either despair or insanity will make that happen. The assistant removes the boxes containing distilled root essence. Each box holds 100 doses, 100 deaths. As he turns to the beds closest to him, a shot rings out and a small hole appears in the assistant's forehead. He looks puzzled, then drops the box and falls dead across the bed, across the legs of a terrified youth who hasn't the strength to push him off.

Ibani loyalists take aim at Carson's end of the ward as they make their way forward. Patients are shot one at a time. Some of them say nothing before this happens, and some of them beg for their lives and for the lives of the friends who are hospitalized with them.

Carson can find no way out of the ward without being seen. He crouches in the corner, holding his face with his hands, wishing the nightmare away. A shot. Another. Bootfalls, one step, one more step, they come closer. The closest exit is on the other side of the room, 75 feet at least and another 50 in the wrong direction. Carson is trapped where he is and can't bear to see his death as it approaches.

Boots. Boots. Someone cries, "No, please!' A shot. Boots… They are so close that Carson hears the leather uppers squeak, hears the tip-tap of the little plastic things at the ends of the shoelaces moving around. Then they stop. Carson shakes. He belches with fear. He expects the bullet to enter his head now…now… The leather creaks again as whoever is standing over him crouches down. Carson's hands are removed from his face. A hand grasps his chin and pries it up from his chest, where he's tucked it. A shot bangs some yards distant. The doctor's eyes fly open in surprise.

It is not possible. His stomach rises at the possibility of salvation when he sees who crouches before him.

"Hi," Carson says.

John Sheppard's stony expression doesn't change at all. "Hi, yourself," he says. The Colonel stands up quickly and hoists his rifle. He uses his foot to push Carson's face away from him and then Carson isn't certain but he believes that getting shot in the head isn't supposed to hurt quite as much as it does.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

_Many, many thanks for the wonderful feedback. I'm happily surprised by the enthusiastic reception the first chapter of this story has received! _

Chapter Two

Carson wakes to see tree limbs moving overhead. Two people walk at his head and two at his feet. They are carrying him on a pole stretcher of some sort. He is sick with the motion.

John says, "On your feet," and Carson is pulled to standing. His eyes are closed and his legs are scarcely strong enough to hold him. People walk him forward and set him to lean against a wall.

"What is he?"

"Doctor. Took him from the hospital."

"You think he'll cooperate?"

No one answers but Carson thinks that someone may have shrugged.

"Put him over there."

He is made to sit on a floor, where he rolls onto his side and holds his head in his hands, because it feels half-exploded. As long as no one makes demands of him, he will be okay. He either sleeps or loses consciousness and, when his eyes focus again, he sees John Sheppard sitting nearby in a flimsy metal folding chair. His legs are akimbo and he slouches, relaxed, but perfectly alert. Carson doesn't believe he's ever seen John appear more predatory.

"You chose the wrong side," the Colonel says, sitting up and resting his elbows on his thighs.

"Wh-what?"

"The wrong side. As in the bad guys."

"You're…"

"Ibani," John completes for him.

"You're not Ibani, Colonel. You're American, I'm Scot. Neither one of us has any reason to take sides here."

John's feral smile sends ice water down Carson's spine. "I'm with the good guys, Carson."

"What happened?"

"Captured by the Berlish, just like you. Shipped off through the gate to this planet, just like you. I escaped to the Ibani, though. You've been too busy saving the lives of murderous Berlish assholes to pay much attention to the bankrupt principles they stand for. I can enlighten you if you want."

"Don't bother."

Two Lantean teams had met with the Berlish to discuss trade. The war was a secret to many, certainly to visitors from other worlds. Carson's team was attacked in the capitol, but he doesn't recall much about that. Sheppard had obviously met the same fate. At first, at any rate.

They sit together, not looking at each other. The place where Carson has been taken is an apparent outpost or an annex of the Ibani resistance. The scruffy troops and primitive accommodations attest to that. A uniformed fighter brings water and a plate for Carson, who has no appetite but drinks a little.

"They forced me to, Colonel."

"Sure." He gets up and holds a hand down to Carson, who takes it and is pulled to his feet. John tips his chin towards a door on the other side of the room.

Carson runs his hands over his face, through his hair. He winces when he comes to a large goose egg on the left side of his head.

"You could have fractured my skull," he says. "Maybe next time you'll think to ask. I would have come willingly."

"Yeah, you're a real joiner, aren't you?" And with that, Sheppard shoves Carson ahead of him.

It is all that Beckett can do to keep from falling over. His head injury is serious enough, but the added fear is giving him fits. They leave the cabin and walk toward an outhouse. Sheppard stands outside as his fellow Lantean enters. He is close enough so Carson can hear his boots scraping along the gravelly dirt.

Carson leans his shoulder against the wall, then bends and vomits into the opening. He doesn't have any food in his stomach, so it's mostly dry heaving, which leaves him shaking and makes tears spill down his cheeks.

"Bad day, Carson," John says, through the thin outhouse wall. "Bad day when you decided to work for them."

"No…no choice," Carson replies.

"There's always a choice."

"Bloody hell there was, Colonel."

"There's always root."

Beckett slams open the outhouse door. He's rarely felt such outrage, and the sudden movement drives him to his knees. He keeps his arms outstretched to prevent himself from falling on his face.

John's beside him, takes his arm and helps him up. Carson notices the harsh line of the Colonel's jaw. This is John before he takes the weapon that he holds so closely and uses it for its created purpose.

"Not so fast, Carson. Up. C'mon." The sharp edge in his voice feels like paper cuts as he whispers in the doctor's ear.

When Beckett looks at John's face, he sees abject hatred and profound confusion and maybe even a little fear. "What are you doing?" he asks.

"Over there," John says, indicating the woods at the end of the outpost clearing. "We're leaving."

The Colonel wraps a steely hand around Carson's upper arm and pulls him along. His feet scrabble in the pebbly soil, but he stays upright, which is good, considering.

Beyond the Ibani camp to the west lies open land, mesas and great sweeping piedmont, glorious in its expansive and unrefined splendor. Berlish-occupied territory lies to the east. Each day the Berlish move farther westward. They gain a few feet or a few yards or even a mile of Ibani land, and take it for their own. They have not grown flowers on every hillside as they had promised. Instead, the land they possess is torn and wasted from weaponry or from the strip mines that have sprung up to take things from the ground. To the east, rolling hills escalate into old mountains covered with broken trees. This is the direction in which Carson is led, tripping along as Sheppard pulls him.

John loosens his grip on Carson's arm and glances around. "How cooperative are you willing to be?"

For the first time since their reintroduction, Carson feels as if someone he knows is living in John's skin.

"How cooperative do you need me to be?" he responds.

Trust and distrust and friendship and unquenchable loathing move across the Colonel's face, a mixture that Carson's at a loss to explain. He questions with caution.

"Did you know I was at the field hospital?" Carson asks, as they approach the eastern-most boundary of Ibani land, as they near the beginnings of the Berlish zone.

"Nope."

"McKay..."

"We've had the technology sector under observation for a while."

Carson swallows, trying to moisten his dry mouth. "The others?" he asks.

"They made it through the gate."

"Thank G—"

John yanks him roughly. "Shut the fuck up! If you're lucky I'll give you a chance to beg for your life before I kill you!"

"Wha--?" Then Carson sees several Ibani at the edge of the compound, some of them smoking indigenous cigarettes that smell like dill. John nods to them as he pulls Carson to the forested area. The Ibani watch the two and they smile when John lifts his rifle to show them.

Carson allows John to lead him into the forest. They walk past the tree line and continue until they are deep into the greenery. Then John unhands Carson quickly, so the doctor falls onto a bed of velvety moss. The Colonel lifts the rifle, chucks a round into the chamber. He looks like a killing machine, thinks Carson. This is the side of Sheppard that shot Ronon and Rodney and it is the side of him that is always there, running just under the surface.

"You're going to kill me?" he asks, trembling, thinking yes, thinking no, thinking yes…

"In a manner of speaking," comes the reply. John stands above him, tips his head back and stares at Carson from under hooded eyes. The effect is so halting Carson feels the very breath leave his body.

Then, with the skill of an expert, John shoulders the weapon, aims it heavenward and fires a single shot, which cracks and explodes and then echoes in the dense forest. It is followed by the sounds of birds alighting and small mammals skittering through the undergrowth. Then, in the far distance, they hear the Ibanis, the ones they passed on their way here, laughing in the dimming twilight.

"Bang. You're dead," says John, looping the rifle's thick strap across his torso. Again, he extends his hand and helps Carson to stand. "That way," he says, pointing farther east.

"Where are we going?"

"To get Rodney and then head home. You in?"

"God save us," Carson replies.

"He's got nothing to do with it, Doc, but you just go ahead and think what you will."

If John's voice were even one degree warmer, Carson would think that they had no differences.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

The moonless sky is bright nonetheless. Refineries process the spoils of war, and their collective light reflects off low-hanging rain clouds that refuse to relinquish their payload. The wooded area scales one mountain and then another and the two travelers make their way through, stumbling over fallen trees and scrub.

"It's not like you think, Colonel," Carson begins.

"I really don't want to talk about it," Sheppard replies.

"At least I was trying to _save_ lives." He can't help but feel sickened when he remembers the slow, persistent bootfalls, a pause, a shot, and the bootfalls continuing. He walks on ahead of John for a few yards before realizing that the colonel has stopped.

He turns to see John standing there, hands folded over the rifle he carries. His downcast eyes reveal nothing.

"There were a dozen of us carrying out the operation. What did you see me do?" John asks, still not looking up.

Carson considers this for a minute. "I saw you…" and then he's not certain what he saw. "I saw someone shooting wounded men lying in their sickbeds."

"That wasn't my question."

"I don't need your bloody questions, Colonel. You bombed a hospital, murdered helpless patients…"

"Don't talk to me about murderers, Carson. Who started this war? Who invaded a peaceful nation? Who destroyed an entire civilization?"

"I repeat, Colonel. I was trying to save lives, not shoot bedridden…half of them were just lads."

It is chilly in the night. The clammy air has seeped into Carson's bones, made him feel old and delicate. He walks on, ahead of John, trusting that he hasn't gone too far. The technology sector is not a long distance, especially if they travel a direct route over the mountains. They will make it by morning, if they make it at all.

The concussion Carson suffered earlier is still with him. He has moments when he's literally walking in his sleep, and his stomach roils at the same time that it asks to be filled. From time to time, he hears Sheppard breathing behind him.

When Carson pauses for a moment, the Colonel passes the physician and walks on.

"Colonel?" Carson asks. The other man says nothing.

For a while they walk in silence, places switched, separate. Then John stops all of a sudden. He turns to face Carson.

"Do you think I would do that?"

Beckett stands quietly. He doesn't know what to say.

John asks, with more insistence, "Did you see me do that?"

It's not a statement or a question; it sounds more like a plea.

Carson straddles the indistinct area between skepticism and concern. "You don't remember?"

John looks up, as if answers were floating in the sky. "Sometimes I'm confused."

Beckett's torn between what he wants to believe and what he doesn't. He saw men shooting but, when he takes a moment to pull it all to mind, he realizes that he viewed the event from behind a blinding veil of fear. Perhaps Carson watched John and others go from bed to bed taking the lives of helpless patients, or perhaps he never saw John raise his weapon until the Colonel heaved back and knocked him senseless. Doubt has its benefits.

"I'd think you'd remember a thing like that, confused or not, Colonel."

Sheppard looks at him but says nothing.

Finally, Carson says, "No, John." He uses his first name. "I didn't see you shoot anyone."

"I didn't shoot you, either."

"Aye."

They walk on, more or less side by side. The skies clear in the night, but the moon has already set and soon a hint of blue appears on the horizon. Just as the sun is about to emerge, the two stop to rest at the crest of the lowest mountain in the range, the last barrier between them and the technology sector, between them and Rodney.

They see the large, bubble-tent buildings strung out over a broad, verdant valley amid a small ramshackle town. Morning crews make their way to the area, their vehicles tiny from this distance. In a couple of hours, John and Carson will be close enough to consider rescuing Rodney and getting to the gate. In a couple of hours, they will have to see eye to eye to make this happen.

Nothing stands between Carson Beckett and his conscience. He knows that some of the people he saved eagerly plundered Iban, took what they could carry. Some of them stormed private homes, stood the mothers and fathers and children living there up against thick plaster walls and shot them all to death. Then, as if they had not done enough, the Berlish, liberators of the oppressed Ibani people, carried off household goods and jewelry, and sometimes pulled wedding rings off lifeless hands.

Carson knows that he saved the lives of people who did these sorts of things. Were it not for the guns, real and figurative, held against his head…

"_There's always root."_

Now that he knows that Rodney is alive, now that he and the Colonel are together and off to rescue one of their own, Carson almost forgives himself. He's tended criminals and good people in two different galaxies, didn't pass judgment on any of them and knows that heaven or hell waits him for that.

In the past day, Carson has been forced to work for the Berlish, and then was highjacked by John Sheppard to an Ibani outpost. Now they have returned to Berlish territory to regain McKay and escape via the gate, which stands not far from the technology sector itself. Sometimes Carson forgets which side he is on in every sense of the word. Everybody seems equally insane and without principles.

They hatch their plan during the daylight, holding out in the woods, eating _rema_ berries and _bafin_ fungus, which tastes a lot like morels back on Earth.

That night, the plan takes on substance. Sheppard and Beckett leave their hiding place and begin their final task before heading for the gate.

OoOoO

John has found a Berlish uniform hung on a wash line. He looks like a regular soldier. Carson has kept on his own uniform, which is dark blue. His profession is recognizable by the badge he wears: a warped caduceus with a heart superimposed over the silhouette of a rifle. They do not hide when they come down to the valley because they look like people who belong there: A Berlish doctor and soldier.

"What was McKay working on?" John peers into army housing and lab buildings, looking for McKay or some sign that he lives there.

"He didn't say. He came in from the front lines with a fractured collarbone and hypoglycemia."

"Front lines. Rodney? That must have been a sight."

Sheppard's brittle chuckle keeps Carson winding in and out of thinking that Sheppard's on the level. They have been in desperate situations together, but nothing quite like this. Until today, the doctor's always trusted John.

Carson says, "He told me he wasn't doing much good in the labs."

From a distance they hear someone speaking quickly with a slight coloration of whining in his voice. A man in a white lab coat stands before a Berlish soldier. The man holds his left arm in a self-splint and Carson doesn't need to see his driver's license to know who it is.

"I'm not asking you to build a space station. I'm asking you to move some equipment for me!"

"Do it yourself," the soldier says.

"Hello? Injured, here!" McKay indicates his arm.

The soldier shrugs. McKay gives the sigh of the ages and retreats into the bubble tent where he has obviously been working.

"Found our man. That was easy," the Colonel says, almost to himself. He eyes Beckett and the badge on his uniform shirt.

They walk together to McKay's tent. The lazy soldier squats by the doorway, eating a candy bar. He stands when Beckett and Sheppard approach, and places his hand on the firing mechanism of his own weapon when he notices the Colonel carrying a rifle of his own.

"It's safe," says Carson. "I'm a doctor. This is my private bodyguard. I've come to examine Dr. McKay's shoulder." He hands his identification to the soldier. They are allowed to pass.

The Lanteans enter the bubble tent, which on the inside looks even more massive than it does from without. Electronic equipment and lab tables fill the entire space, which is easily as large as Carson's field hospital. The Berlish are as advanced scientifically as people on Earth, so everything looks strange and familiar at the same time.

"Whatcha doin', McKay?" Sheppard calls to the physicist, who drops the box he is struggling to lift with one arm.

"Oh!" Rodney looks up in surprise but doesn't move, as if he's been caught in a lie. He breaks into a smile. "You're here, alive!" And his shoulders relax as if they've been tensed unendingly since the moment they were all taken. McKay approaches Sheppard in the familiar way he always has.

Sheppard stiffens and backs away. "I asked what you were working on," he says. "Don't you want to tell me?"

McKay tenses up, again. He fidgets and clears his throat. "T-top secret. Utterly classified." He gives a lopsided grin. "I'd tell you but then I'd have to kill you."

"There's root, McKay. You could always kill yourself," Sheppard says.

The hair on the back of Carson's neck feels as if it's standing up. "Colonel…" he says. "What are ye on about? This is a rescue, right?"

"Stay out of this Carson," Sheppard warns. He turns to McKay, again. "You're working on the sound, aren't you?"

McKay's eyes widen but he says nothing, as John approaches with the rifle held a little higher, a little more dangerously, which gives Carson a little more of a kick in the gut. Carson follows the Colonel, feeling the adrenalin pour into his system.

McKay's eyes shift around. "No, I'm not. Sound? What sound?" He is so bad at this.

"Don't lie to me, Rodney. You think I'm stupid?"

"N-no, of course not."

"What sound is this, Colonel?" Carson is immediately beside Sheppard. He notices John's body language, the tenseness, aggression, even.

John continues, his fury unabated. "Tell him, McKay. Tell Beckett all about it. I'm sure it'll interest him."

McKay looks over at Carson, his eyes pleading like those of the helpless soldiers in the army hospital, the soldiers who were murdered in their sickbeds.

Carson blinks the image away. He says, "Colonel…" to bring his friend back.

"Tell him, McKay!"

The physicist raises his hands. Rodney was once shot by Sheppard. Carson didn't witness it, but he remembers the aftermath very, very well.

"Colonel," Carson repeats. "Please put down the gun."

"McKay!" There's no getting through to Sheppard, as he aims his rifle at McKay's head and holds it there.

McKay flinches. "It wasn't my idea!" he shouts. "They forced me to!"

"Rodney, what are you talking about?"

"They told us—there was a team working on it—they told us what they wanted was a sound that could kill someone from a distance. So I…I did what they told me to do. And it's designed to kill more than just people. It's supposed to kill humans, animals, plants, everything!"

The bubble tent is silent but for McKay's panting breaths. Sheppard doesn't seem to be breathing at all, as he holds the rifle, taking dead aim at his good friend. Carson hears the blood rushing through his own veins, feels his pulse pounding behind his eyes.

He leaves Sheppard's side and walks to McKay, whose arms are still raised, even though one of his collarbones is broken. He takes McKay's left arm and holds it gently and places it against McKay's chest.

"You developed this…this sound?" Carson asks.

McKay shakes his head. "I didn't do much at all. I did so little they sent me to the front instead." He stares at Sheppard as he says this. "And that's the truth, Colonel."

John is silent, but he lowers the gun and rubs a hand over his face.

"I'm overheated," Rodney says, his eyes never leaving Sheppard. "Help me with my coat."

Without even thinking about it, Carson stands in front of Rodney, unbuttons the coat and carefully removes it.

"Sheppard's going to kill me!" Rodney whispers.

Carson looks back. Sheppard seems a bit more composed, a little less murderous.

Rodney winces when he moves his left arm, so Carson places it against his chest to hold it steady.

"You need a sling and a swath," he says, trying to be a doctor, again, instead of a mediator.

"Later," McKay replies, as he slowly moves his right hand down and around and over into the small of his back. He's been watching Sheppard steadily, but now looks at Carson. Despite having known Rodney for years, Carson has never seen this expression before and it freezes the blood in his veins.

"It won't hurt," McKay says, conspiratorially.

Carson notices the pistol drawn from the waist of McKay's pants for the thinnest sliver of time before he realizes exactly what McKay intends to do with it.

"No, Rodney!" the doctor shouts, moving to push the weapon up and out of the way.

"God damn it, Carson! Move!" the colonel bellows from behind him.

Carson isn't big or strong or anything like that. He hasn't got big muscles but he does have will, the will to live and the will to set things right. McKay's injury puts the physicist off balance and he teeters on the cusp of falling. Beckett puts some shoulder into it and shoves him sideways, as Sheppard's roar to get out of the way rolls right past him. With one useless arm and the pistol in his hand, Rodney has no way to grab anything to stop himself. He falls to the floor roughly and the weapon he's holding goes off with a surprisingly quiet sputter, as a blue-green light erupts from the muzzle.

It's not a bullet gun. McKay's got something else, something new and shiny and unpredictable. Carson doesn't feel a point of impact as much as he feels his entire body becoming unhinged, collapsing. There is no explosion as with a gun, but a rumble that builds in his brain that gets louder and louder and then…

"Oh, no!" McKay intones.

"McKay, you son of a bitch!"

"Hold it, Colonel! Don't come any closer."

It's all falling apart for Carson. Someone catches him as he stumbles backwards.

"Shit! I've got you, Car..."

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: Again, my deepest thanks to those who sent in feedback for this story. Feedback is like chocolate to me._

Chapter Four

"Hold him…"

"What did you do…"

"No, no! You need me, Colonel!"

"Carson..."

They have left the bubble tent. The ground is chilly beneath him, but Carson's a hardy type. Scotland is not known for its balmy climate…

"How much farther?"

Someone is leading him, has one of Carson's arms over his shoulder. To his surprise, Beckett finds himself walking, staggering actually, in something that resembles a forward direction. He is laid on the ground, again, and a dribble of water passes over his lips. He takes it in, pulls in the droplets to feed his starving tissues.

His eyes have been open for a while, but they only now see things, understand the objects in front of them. A persistent hum makes him rub his ears, which does nothing to stop it.

Dim firelight. John holds McKay's pistol. He turns it, examines its details, runs his hand along the barrel. For a moment, Carson thinks that McKay is dead, because most men—even off-beat physicists—are extremely possessive about the things that they carry to protect themselves. But then Rodney appears on the edges of Carson's vision, all wringing hands and pent-up energy.

"…so sor…"

The hum, which comes forward and then fades to the background, colors everything, a rolling thunder that doesn't go away completely. John and Rodney sit close together, which means a lot more than words right now, so it almost doesn't matter.

"…right in front or it won't work. Only the target hears anything if it's centered…" and then he hears, "Go ahead. Shoot me."

A short silence.

Then McKay says, "It's got a personalized fail safe. I'm the only one it recognizes…"

The hum increases. It makes Carson's head ache, makes it feel stuffed with sticky filling, like jam biscuits at home.

"Hey." McKay's face is directly over Carson's. "With us?"

John mumbles. Carson hears, "…piece-of-shit sound gun…" and "…even when it works, it only half-kills people…"

Carson doesn't really care about any of that. The ground is still chilly, this time annoyingly so. The little fire burns nearby. Sometimes the smoke drifts over him, making his nostrils sting. Sometimes the smoke reaches down his throat and irritates it. Then he's pulled up again and made to half walk as he is half dragged.

It starts to rain sometime in the night. Beckett doesn't know which night this is because he has no concept of time. But the rain comes and he awakens a little to find that he is pressed against a steep hillside, shoved against the wet grass and wet leaves and the pungent, wet soil. Explosions rumble nearby; guns, real guns. Then...

"McKay, get back here!" This is the Colonel whispering urgently right in Carson's ear as he holds the doctor against the wet earth. "Mc…" Then a snap, a hum, familiar now that Beckett's experienced it point blank. Someone shouts, the hum continues, someone falls to the ground.

When the world is silent again, Carson's made to move, and Sheppard says, "Good job, McKay…No, really. I mean it."

That's in his left ear. In his right, he hears the tone but not the words with which Rodney responds. He sounds surprised, even a little stunned.

There's no pain for Carson as his journey continues, but he can't hear all the time, hears the hum all the time, and his body is not cooperating. The trio's trek is punctuated with Carson's falling to his knees and Sheppard urging him up on his feet once more.

He misses the gate activating altogether. One moment it's raining and he's fallen to the ground for the hundredth time, and the next he's lying on the gateroom floor. The only reason he knows this is because he hears Elizabeth call for a medical team and feels people messing around with his body.

"Doctor Beckett?"

The heated blanket is laid over him.

"Carson? Can you open your eyes?"

He doesn't respond, but when he tries to lift his hand, it is too heavy to move except for a little bend to the index finger.

Eventually all of that resolves. The first thing he sees is a ceiling, of course, and then he has a blurry image of Elizabeth on the other side of the infirmary, speaking with Col. Caldwell. At least, he thinks that's who they are.

He hears boots squeak and then stop. Eyes open and John Sheppard is there, looking like warmed-over shit, caked with mud, his clothing sopping wet, a stray leaf caught in the collar of his jacket. Carson really doesn't want to see him right now, but has no choice.

"Doc," the Colonel says.

Carson stares at him. _Bootfalls and the squeak of leather. A pause and the sound of someone begging for his life and then the shot and silence. The bootfalls and the squeak…_

John shuffles his feet and looks down at them. Squeak. The doctor still doesn't know. He may have been right the first time, or he may have been mistaken. Sheppard would never do anything like that. He's trained to kill people, but he's also trained to have self-control, dispassionate problem-solving. Sheppard slides his eyes up and looks at Beckett. The age-old conflict between healer and warrior certainly won't end with them.

"You had first battalion in the field hospital, right?" Sheppard asks. He's speaking very quietly. Carson's surprised that he hears this above the maddening hum.

"What are you saying?" Carson can barely get a word out.

"First battalion. No conscripts. All volunteers. They were the ones who pillaged Harva. Killed everyone there. Remember?"

Carson's trying to recall Harva. Small town, small city, actually. It was surrounded and attacked by the Berlish. Every last person living there was murdered in the name of promoting peace and prosperity.

"Does that make what you did right?" Carson asks.

"Harva. Itrope. Dellowah… I'll ask the same question of you, Doc."

"With a gun at my head, Colonel."

"Root."

"Same to you," he says.

They don't talk for a while. Carson's getting tired. He wants to go to his quarters. He wants to go back to Scotland and take long walks in the afternoon, someplace where the sound of the wind will overtake the hum in his head.

Elizabeth and Caldwell notice that Carson's awake. They approach his bed. Sheppard has been hovering hard by Beckett. Now he straightens and lets a more serene expression cover his face, brings his voice up out of its intimate whisper.

"McKay's prototype came in handy."

Subject change. Thank God. "Aye?"

"He didn't kill anyone. The sound thing doesn't work very well, just kind of slows people down."

"Tell me about it."

"You got the worst it can do. McKay hit you point blank. On the way back to the gate, he took out a couple dozen Berlish. We wouldn't have gotten away without it."

"Hm." Carson nods noncommittally.

OoOoO

Later on, after Sheppard has left, McKay shows up. He seems suitably regretful, but uncomfortable in his skin like always.

"Told you I wasn't very enthusiastic about my work," he says.

"You shot me."

"Not very, uh, _hard_."

"You pointed your bloody gun at me…"

"It was an accident. You know that!"

"…and pulled the trigger…"

"Actually, it's more like a plunger…"

"I don't give a bloody shite what you call it, Rodney! You damned well could have killed me!"

McKay hasn't looked at Carson once since he came and stood by the bed. It could be a measure of his guilt, or it could be that he simply can't stomach difficult situations. He turns to leave, then stops himself.

"It's an untested prototype. I meant to subdue the Colonel. Never intended to kill him. Or you. Think about it, Carson. Why did I have it with me, tucked into my belt like that?"

The Scot picks at lint balls on the blanket.

"I was trying to escape with it. Trying to get to the gate to bring back people to rescue you. I had no idea Sheppard was around, but they would have rescued him too, I suppose. You don't believe it, but it's true."

McKay stands there quietly, as if to prove the truthfulness of what he's saying by sticking around, showing his front for a change.

"We all did some pretty terrible things, Carson. Even if we didn't want to or mean to."

Truer words…

"I was working for the wrong side," Carson says. "So were you."

"So was Sheppard. Don't kid yourself. His group was part of a foreign insurgency. He wasn't with the Ibani national party. Of course, he didn't know that, didn't know anything. Even now he's kind of deluded. You heard about the stuff they were giving him? Synthetic testosterone and industrial-strength steroids."

Beckett remembers everything he saw Sheppard do, remembers the uncontrollable fury that seeped from every pore in the Colonel's body.

McKay cracks a half-smile. "It was a rage cocktail, you could say. That much juice would make a mass murderer out of your own mother…"

Carson glares at him, and McKay shuts up.

National party. Foreign insurgency. Hormones and steroids. Carson moves the covers off himself and sits to the side of the bed. He's had enough for today. McKay moves to help, but Carson waves him off.

"Bathroom. I'm capable."

Once he's alone, Carson throws water on his face. The sound gun left no outward sign of permanent damage, although his ears ring and he hears the hum all the time, reverberating in his head. Without even his calling them to mind, he hears the horrid events in the field hospital.

_The boots squeak and the laces click, the gun fires and the bootfalls continue._

In the evening, Carson is removed to his quarters, where he eats a light meal. Elizabeth comes to see him. They talk about what happened with the Ibani and the Berlish and about the hum in Carson's head. She wants him to work with McKay and Zelenka to develop the sound weapon, to see if it will work against the Wraith.

"Dr. Biro's better suited for studying the pathological effects," he says.

"The fewer people who know about this, the better," she responds.

"It's dangerous, Elizabeth," he says, trying to ignore the hum, trying to ignore his growing unease.

"So are nukes, so are the weapons we already have. We need something to stun, if that gives you any comfort."

"But you want it improved."

"If possible. If not, I'll take what I can get."

Carson is sitting on the edge of his bed, clasping and unclasping his hands. Elizabeth stands up beside him. She places her hand on his sore shoulder, the one that Hale Mansoor squeezed.

"Yes, I see your point," he agrees, shifting to make her take her hand off of him.

"I thought that you would."

OoOoO

Beckett stays pretty much to himself after the hum fades enough to allow him to work. The sound weapon isn't ready for his input, so Carson has been doctoring instead of looking for ways to kill and maim other people or other species. His hearing isn't what it was, and he's discussed with Elizabeth the possibility of returning to Earth to be fitted with aids. Earth feels like the answer to all of his problems, actually. It is his own personal root. As the piled-up paperwork diminishes, his anxious desire to leave Atlantis grows.

Then…

It isn't something that he hears because he doesn't hear all that well anymore. It is as if the air moves, snaps, does something, which makes him look up from the last file in the last pile in the last inbox on his desk…a day away from a trip through the gate. He'll go home to the wide, rocky fields of northern Scotland, where, the wind blows constantly and he won't have to worry about what he does and doesn't hear.

The air moves like that. So Carson pauses, feeling his stomach dropping and dropping, as he waits for the call…

"Medical team to Lab 4!"

"Crap!"

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: This was written before the second half of season three began broadcasting. Any similarities are purely coincidental. I would like to take this final opportunity to thank the people who sent in such lovely feedback. I am very happy that you enjoyed this story. Deepest thanks to Aslowhite for her beta and to Inkling for her inspiration._

Chapter Five

"I told him it wasn't safe to be tested!"

This is Zelenka, hanging alongside Beckett as a medical team loads an unconscious McKay onto a wheeled cot. The Czech holds a datapad, the screen of which is cracked in a dozen places.

Carson glances at the datapad and then at Radek. "Thank God your glasses have plastic lenses, Dr. Zelenka."

The Czech removes his specs and checks them briefly.

They hurry McKay towards the infirmary, accompanied by Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon.

"Never mind," Sheppard says. "What happened?"

"The sonic output regulator has two settings, one focused, one broadbeam. We were testing the focused effects on organic material, some bean plants that the botany division gave us. Against my advice, I might add. It is not a stable device, yet. The pinpoint beam suddenly expanded well out of its designated range."

He shrugs and looks around, apparently expecting everyone to understand what he's saying.

"Wrong place, wrong time," he paraphrases. "Rodney was struck by the sound and collapsed."

They have reached the infirmary and transferred McKay to a bed there. Beckett shoos away Zelenka, Sheppard and the rest, and pulls a curtain around McKay's bed. On assessment, he finds McKay's eardrums ruptured and blood leaking from both ear canals. Pupils normal. Vital signs within normal limits. No fractures or other obvious trauma. Carson orders a CAT scan. McKay's clothing is removed. He's given a complete head-to-toe exam and then dressed in a hospital gown. All the while, Radek speaks on the other side of the curtain of frequencies and of cellular disruption.

"It is more powerful than when Rodney brought the weapon back to Atlantis," Zelenka says. "This was our first test of the weapon, so I have no idea how it has affected him."

Two hours later, McKay opens his eyes for a little while. Carson knows he's being bothered by the hum, so he prepares a portable CD player and headphones. Once the 'phones are in place, he starts the first disk, Mozart's Piano Concerto #20 in D Minor.

Teyla sits by the bed for a long time. Ronon comes by. When McKay wakes up again, they speak to him. His expression confirms what Carson had feared.

OoOoO

Carson has already decided what he's going to do. He's still got the hum to remind him every day. Long after he's left McKay's bedside, late in the night, he walks the halls. Expansive windows overlook the inky-black ocean, which gives off an oily shine when the city lights hit it. He stares at his reflection in the glass, shadowed by ceiling lights behind him.

"Monster," he says to himself.

It's only a matter of time before the sound weapon is perfected. If McKay lets it go that far, if he's capable of fruitful work after this. He's not an evil man, but one driven by inquisitiveness and by Elizabeth's ambitions for him and for herself.

Sheppard sits on the floor outside Carson's quarters.

"You could have waited inside," the doctor says.

"Too forward," the Colonel replies, standing.

They enter together and Sheppard lurks by the door. He's never been in Carson's rooms and Carson's never been in his. This is quite probably enemy territory to John.

In the few weeks since they stumbled through the gate back here, Beckett and Sheppard haven't spoken with each other about anything important. John left the infirmary today shortly after Rodney was brought there. Looking at the Colonel's face now, the reason is obvious, for Carson's never seen anyone so weighted with regret.

Sheppard asks, "McKay's going to be okay?"

Carson sighs. "I think not." He cups a hand to his own ear. "Say wha' now?"

They still hate and like and appreciate and despise each other. Carson notes that Sheppard's wearing the low boots this evening, the canvas ones that make no noise.

"Look, Carson…"

"Say no more. I want to go back to Earth anyway. Might as well have a good reason for it, even if I get chucked on my ass in the process."

"Space it?"

"Yes. Destroy it in space."

They do this together. Zelenka has left the lab for the night; the weapon is locked up but not nearly so securely that Sheppard can't break in and acquire it. They find Zelenka's datapad with the broken screen and snatch that, as well.

They do this together. Carson's relaxed at the jumper's controls. It's easier to be calm and collected flying when Sheppard's around to set a calm, focused, goal-oriented example.

Elizabeth growls at them through their headsets until they switch off the comm and let her yell at herself for a while. The jumper stops in the disorienting openness of space.

The prototype weapon, the one that McKay brought back with him to Atlantis, hums a little even when it is switched off. Sheppard tapes the datapad and the prototype to each other. Then he tapes both of those things to the explosive. The datapad flashes a few times, as the screen tries to come back to life.

"You ready?" Sheppard closes the bulkhead doors.

"Ready, Colonel."

When the rear hatch is opened, the rear compartment decompresses, and the objects are blown out into the void. Carson propels the jumper away as Sheppard presses the activation button. The prototype and all of the information about it explode silently in the nothingness around them. A sound weapon is impotent in space, so this is a good place to kill it. Carson wonders what sort of noise it would have made if they'd blown it up on Earth.

They travel in silence for a while. Neither wants to return to Atlantis just yet. At sunrise Carson remembers that he has a patient in the infirmary who needs tending. He realizes that this is a patient to whom he will have to say goodbye.

OoOoO

Carson's lived alone in one end of the croft house for nearly two years. It's just the one room, with a bed, a table and chairs, a bookcase, a settee, the telly and some lamps here and there. A tiny kitchen takes up part of one wall. The fireplace and portable heater keep things warm enough. The other end of the croft holds the washer and dryer, the pantry, and supplies like light bulbs and laundry detergent, everything he needs.

Outside the winds make noise as they peel around the northwest corner, whistling when the gusts come up, moaning when the velocity turns lazy. This was his main reason for choosing to live here: ambient sounds keep the hum away. It isn't a hum like a child makes when she draws pictures at the kitchen table. It isn't the hum of the refrigerator. It isn't the hum of a 'jumper's drive pods. It is different from all of that, something deep inside his head that will always be there.

Three days a week, he drives into Lerwick to staff the walk-in clinic there. This is as far away from genetics as he can get. Carson likes his patients, who come in for skin rashes and for broken fingers and bronchitis. He uses aids in both ears when he works. They allow him to hear above the hum. That and a talent for lip-reading make most people perfectly understood.

Winter begins its long, slow melt into spring in late April. By the end of May, it's almost warm enough to go in shirtsleeves, but not quite. The Shetland Islands are all ragged coastline. He walks the edges of them, looking out over the ocean, which roils without end.

The croft house stands close to a high cliff edge. This afternoon Carson sits on a stool outside his back door, his favorite spot. His ears catch the wind blowing in off the water. No matter. He hears the squeak but, even before that, he sensed someone approaching.

"Hi, Doc."

"Hi, yourself, Colonel," he replies, without turning around.

"You're unlisted."

"Prank callers. Rodney?"

Sheppard looks out at the water. "He's okay. Still stone deaf. Does consulting. Sent along a letter," which Sheppard hands over.

Carson doesn't read it, just slips the folded paper into his back pocket.

"Tea, then?"

"Sure."

The wind moans around the corner of the croft house.

Carson puts on the satellite telly to a music channel, something light with lots of pianos. Good thing he lives out in the middle of nowhere, because the volume has to be very high in order to block out the hum. This time he keeps it dialed low so it won't bother John. Then he boils up some water and brings the tea and a plate of scones and jam to the table. They eat and drink and look out the little kitchen window.

"You didn't have to come here, Colonel. You could have left a message at the clinic."

John nods but otherwise doesn't respond.

"Why are you here?"

John gulps the last of his tea as if it were diner coffee. He continues to look out the window instead of at the man sitting three feet away. "I want to ask you... It's been a couple of years, so maybe it's alright to ask about this now?" There's just a little lifting hint of a question. Carson's hearing isn't always useful for much without the aids, but he picks up on what Sheppard's trying to say.

Carson rises and takes the teacups and plates to the sink. It's a cold-water tap, so he lets things soak for now, until he can heat some water on the fire.

"Ask away," he says.

"You didn't say anything to Elizabeth about when I got you out of the field hospital. About what you thought you saw."

"Devastating charges, Colonel. If they were true…"

"And you know that they would not have been…"

Beckett pauses at the sink, then he turns around and looks at Sheppard. The Colonel is leaning back in the dining chair, giving him a half-lidded stare that makes him look inhuman and raw.

Carson asks, "Why talk about this now?"

"They've gotten curious, again. I expect they'll be coming to ask you questions. I just wanted to get this clear between us."

"Steroids, Colonel. Hormones."

"And you?"

"A gun to my head every day."

"And McKay?"

He has to think about this, about what he knows about McKay, or what he thinks he knew about him.

Finally, Carson says, "Desperate times, desperate measures. He's gone overboard before."

"He's curious, too."

"Yes, that's part of it. Why else would he have taken an idea and gotten that far in only a few weeks?"

Sheppard continues to look at the doctor. It is chilling the room by degrees each minute he stays that way. Carson realizes that there will never be any going back for any of them, for John in particular. Whether from drug cocktails or from the weight of culpability, the results are the same.

Carson feels a great empty well open up inside him, because he wishes that things were different. At the same time, he wants Sheppard to just go away. Still, Carson's mother taught him to be polite, so he is that.

"So…you're back in the States?"

"Based there, yeah. I travel a lot."

Carson's heard about John's work and wonders how much of his humanity the Colonel has to submerge to do it. At least there's no confusion about who's side he's on; money motivates only a little less effectively than fear.

"Staying in town?"

"Yeah. Just for the night. Nice island."

"They're a series of islands, actually. The innkeepers will fill you in on local geological history. It's quite fascinating. Also, they serve good haggis, if you're interested."

Sheppard screws up his face and tips the chair to rightness. With a sigh, he rises and zips his jacket to the neck.

"Do you miss it?" he asks.

"Oh…" Beckett sighs. "Sometimes."

"When we took that thing into space…"

Carson smiles, remembering.

"I, uh…" John rubs the back of his head, making the hair there stick out. "We used to be…uh…"

"Friends?"

"Uh…yeah."

"It's not blown over yet, but maybe when it does," Carson says, and some small part of him, the part that loves and hates simultaneously, believes this.

He opens the door for John, who walks out into the evening mist that's blown in from the ocean. Carson can't hear the rental's engine turn over, but its headlights illuminate the fog that lies heavily over the croft and the land surrounding it.

When Carson closes the door behind Sheppard, it feels like the culmination of two years' hard work.

He takes the paper out of his pocket. Rodney's handwriting hasn't changed, which is strangely comforting.

"Hi, Carson," he has written. Then, "Mozart's Piano Concerto #20 in D Minor. That was the last thing I ever heard. I appreciate it. Thanks." At the bottom of the paper is an e-mail address.

Carson looks at the paper for a very long time. Then he tears it up and throws it in the kitchen trash can. He makes some more tea and wolfs down another scone. He's getting soft around the middle but he doesn't care. Doesn't care at all. It's just turned dark outside, not all that late. Still, he swallows a 20-mg Valium, readies himself and climbs into bed. In twenty minutes, he's asleep.

In the very early morning, he wakes and stares at the wood-beam ceiling above him. His quarters in Atlantis had lovely arching pillars in it, meeting right over his bed, like he was in a little church apse.

It takes a while to get out all of the things he's wanted to say over the past two years. He's not going to marry, he doesn't think, or have any wee ones to carry the precious gene that lives within him. No one will ever be close enough to him to know his secrets, so he tells them to the ceiling, and talks and talks and talks.

It's not ever going to be enough, though. The sun rises behind thick clouds. He has his morning tea and opens up a tin of biscuits. The wind whistles around the corner.

Rodney hasn't heard a thing in two years. He will never hear again.

Carson decides that it's time to refill the well. He goes to the wastebasket and takes out all of the bits of paper that he threw in there the night before. He puts them back together with tape and brings the thing over to his computer. He types in Rodney's e-mail address and spends the rest of the daylight typing and typing, telling Rodney everything that's been on his mind since the day they last saw each other. He tells Rodney about being arrested and returned to Earth, about the eventual offer to come home to Scotland and work like a normal person. He expresses his feelings about everyone they both know.

At day's end, Carson's gone ahead and written almost thirty pages. He feels much better and doesn't re-read anything that he's typed. Just highlights all of it and pushes the Delete button.

Then he re-sits himself and types in:

"Hi, yourself, Rodney…"

Then he pushes "Send."

FIN


End file.
